It was the flagship of Elizabethan mariner, privateer and explorer Sir Francis Drake. When the Golden Hind set off on a secret mission, it became the first English ship to sail around the world.
Rob Bell explores the extraordinary tea clipper Cutty Sark, a ship that endured drunken captains and murderous crews, inspired a whiskey and survived the coming of the steam age.
Rob Bell investigates the sinking of the Mary Rose- Henry VIII's great warship- which went down nearly five centuries ago, killing more than 400 men.
Rob Bell uncovers the story behind what was once the longest passenger ship in the world, the SS Great Britain. This vast vessel included innovations still found on almost all modern ships.
HMS Victory was Admiral Nelson's personal flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar, and at one point was the largest warship in the world.
Delve into the fascinating history of the WWII cruiser HMS Belfast, the sole survivor of the British ships that bombarded the Normandy coast on D-Day.
This is the story of how a humble coal vessel became one of Britain's greatest ships. Capable of battling stormy seas, the ship carried the historic missions of Captain James Cook to explore the South Pacific. It was King George III who commanded Cook to find a mysterious continent rumored to lie within the vast Pacific Ocean. To do this, Cook would have to literally sail Endeavour off the map.
The most famous ship in the world, Titanic, was a marvel of engineering based on revolutionary new capabilities. It bristled with the latest technology and was said to be unsinkable. And yet, her maiden voyage become the most famous maritime disaster in history. In the Belfast shipyard where the Titanic was built is a piece of living history that links us to the legend: the SS Nomadic.
This humble British merchant ship carried one of history's most important voyages. It was hired by a group of religious dissidents to transport them to a new life of freedom in the New World. Facing fierce storms, mutiny, deprivation and death, Mayflower's crew and the Pilgrims overcame almost impossible odds to establish the colony that ultimately gave birth to the United States of America.
The world's first purpose-built scientific vessel, her bold journey to the most inhospitable continent on the planet, Antarctica, propelled Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton into the ranks of the world's most famous explorers. The diaries of Discovery's backers tell the incredible story of how a chance meeting in London would define the course of polar exploration.
This famous ocean liner serves as a staggering monument to British nautical engineering. Scaling the funnel and delving deep into the engine room, host Rob Bell finds out how the largest ship of her day could also become the fastest, achieving speeds that few large ships can match 80 years later. Before winning the hearts of two nations, this ship had to survive the force of a freakish rogue wave.
The Ark Royal was World War II's most famous aircraft carrier. Her survival in the face of Nazi Luftwaffe bombing raids and U-boat attacks was a testament to her ingenious design and courageous crew. Over the course of the war, she hunted down some of the Nazis' most feared warships. The Nazis were determined to sink her, but the crew of this 'lucky' ship continued to thwart their efforts.
